Sen. Mitch McConnell, the evil procedural genius who somehow always manages to be the most powerful person in Washington from his lowly perch as Senate minority leader, doesn't take offense when people call him and his party "hostage-takers." He rather fancies the title! But he does want to clear up the details of how and why he loves taking legislative hostages.

Are Republicans really prepared to shoot their legislative hostages when they take them, all the time? Maybe some Republicans are, he tells the Washington Post. Modest Mitch McConnell, however, merely wants to keep the hostages in his dank monster dungeon until the Democrats pay up:

"I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting," he said. "Most of us didn't think that. What we did learn is this - it's a hostage that's worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done."

Top logicians might read this and ask, then why does the president always pay the ransom since the hostage will never get shot? Because the president's pollsters tell him that paying ransom for a hostage — or what in Beltway media is called "compromise" — will help him with independents, of course. Independents love it when Democrats pay ransom! This extended metaphor either explains the last 30 years of American politics or it is just awful psychotic nonsense, but probably both.